LETTERS; Covering Campaigns

Published: April 4, 2010

To the Editor:

Starting as a young assistant to Gov. Adlai E. Stevenson in his 1952 presidential campaign, I've been active in national campaigns (including every presidential debate) for more than 50 years. Jill Abramson's insightful essay about political campaign books (''The Making of the President, Then and Now,'' March 21) accurately points out that ''the great campaign books are about more than back-room drama and tactical maneuver.'' Unfortunately, much current journalism perceives elections as sporting contests. There is little historical perspective in most contemporary campaign coverage, and Abramson is right in observing that we deserve better.

NEWTON N. MINOW
Chicago
The writer was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission under President John F. Kennedy.

To the Editor:

Jill Abramson's essay seems to be a paean to rather staid and orthodox campaign accounts, notably Theodore White's 1960 ''Making of the President'' and those that followed. While, for their time, these books were the gold standard, it has to be said that times have changed. By her standard, which seems to ignore or lament the change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's ''Game Change'' is bound to fall short. In her terms, it falls short by virtue of lacking ''the air of the country.''

I would suggest that ''Game Change'' is valuable for two reasons: It delves into levels of campaign activity well below the elevated or magisterial top that White tends to dwell upon, and it therefore serves the valuable function of portraying the major players in the candid perspective of those who see them as they are, instead of as the idealized figures they pretend to be.

Rather than lacking ''the air of the country,'' books like ''Game Change'' suggest that the air is there, but that it's unpleasantly stagnant.